Upcoming Webinars: Save the Date!

For the upcoming academic year 2014-2015, the Virtual Professional Development webinars offered by ETS will be offered in four sets of three sessions, for a total of 12 sessions. Each session will be an hour long. MATH-UP alumni and current students who attend the live sessions will receive a $30 gift card or professional development hour credit when applicable.

Below is a description of each series and the tentative schedule of the webinars. Dates and topics are subject to change.

Series 1: Common Core State Standards: Integration and Strategies for ELA Teachers - Dr. Laura Ascenzi-Moreno

These webinars will focus on Common Core State Standards in ELA. The first webinar will provide an overview of Common Core ELA standards, and how to integrate them into classrooms. The second webinar will provide practical examples of using Common Core ELA standards in classrooms as well as available resources and strategies to implement them in classrooms. The third webinar will pay particular attention to literacy issues, ELL students, and students with special needs.

Dr. Laura Ascenzi-Moreno has a highly relevant perspective as an NYC native and former NYC teacher, with a combined 12 years experience as a dual language teacher and curriculum coach. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College's Department of Childhood, Bilingual, and Special Education where her research areas include assessment, multiple literacies, and teacher knowledge. Additionally, Dr. Ascenzi-Moreno is an associate investigator on the New York State Initiative on Emergent Bilinguals(CUNY-NYSIEB)

Through three highly interactive webinars, Dr. Ascenzi-Moreno will focus on documented classroom strategies for success. One webinar will be on classroom management and other general strategies, one on child-specific strategies with a focus on ELL students and those with special needs and the third on problem-solving scenarios including actual events stemming from the MATH-UP teacher's experiences.

Led again by Dr. Laura Ascenzi-Moreno, the webinar series will also circle back to the first webinar series and tie in classroom strategies around ELA teachers in regard to child specific strategies.

Part I - Saturday, September 20, 2014

Part II - Saturday, November 1, 2014

Part III - Saturday, November 15, 2014

Series 3: Using formative assessment to unearth problem-solving and sense-making in mathematics - William Crombie

This series will build upon the teaching on the ETS Math Challenges by facilitating both the problem-solving and the sense-making of learners of mathematics. Sense-making is a necessary prerequisite to problem-solving and may be captured by the intuitive and common-sense attributions which learners make towards mathematical problems. This set of webinars that teach students to collect evidence of (1) how students make sense of mathematical problems, (2) their ability to engage non-cognitive skills in the process of doing mathematics and (3) their ability to communicate their ideas both individually and within a team, with pictures, words and symbols.

William Crombie is the director of professional development for the Algebra Project, Inc. Since 1990 Mr. Crombie has been involved in the development and delivery of curriculum and professional development programs for the Algebra Project at both the middle and high school level. He has worked as a PD specialist and a site development consultant to a number of U.S. school systems and communities in their efforts to establish local algebra projects: Boston; Cambridge; Chicago; Louisville; Los Angeles; Milwaukee; Marlboro County, SC; Plainfield, NJ; and New York City. From 1994 to 1997 he was director of the Chicago Algebra Project. He holds a BA in both mathematics and physics from Rutgers University and a MS in physics from Brown University.

Part I - Saturday, November 22, 2014

Part II - Saturday, December 13, 2014

Part III - Saturday, February 7, 2015

Series 4: Using Data to Target Instruction to Meet the Needs of Every Learner - Faith Washburn

This series will impart ways to build implement, and sustain the work of using data to meet the needs of every learner through the use of data teams. As teachers become more skilled in the process of using and understanding data, they begin to explore more teaching strategies that they might not ever have thought of using. Particular emphasis will be paid to John Hattie’s notion of Visible Learning, which demonstrates that teachers are most successful when they become evaluators of their own teaching1.

Faith Washburn has held a variety of posts as an educator and administrator, and has been the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions. A former Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year, and recipient of an official Commendation from State Senator Allyson Schwartz, Washburn spent a total of 10 years in Pennsylvania public schools as a teacher and later as a principal. She is currently a Complex Academic Officer for the Hawaii Department of Education, where she promotes the collection and utilization of student data to improve learning outcomes and support student empowerment.